


The Value of an Event on a Wet Day in the Country

by Tibby



Category: Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 04:31:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13046547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tibby/pseuds/Tibby
Summary: Fanny finds herself caught in the rain. Again.





	The Value of an Event on a Wet Day in the Country

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TeaRoses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/gifts).



“Had you seen the poor creature,” wrote Miss Crawford to her brother, “You would have been alarmed as I. Indeed, I now expect to be plagued with two or more letters a day, despite your accustomed disinclination in writing to me at all, pressing your dear sister for details of Miss Price’s health until the moment I can write you in the fullest truth that not the faintest cough or a-tishoo is heard to pass Miss Price’s lips.”

To Fanny, Miss Crawford wrote:

“My dear Fanny,

I have not had the slightest respite from worry over you since you left the parsonage. And if you can imagine my feelings, you will still not know a tenth of Henry’s, since I have already written him and have received the most interested letter in return not one hour ago.

I will call tomorrow but I ask that you do not trouble yourself to receive me if you are unable. I will leave a pot of my sister’s beef broth with your aunts, and my love and affection also.

Yours,  
Mary”

When Fanny read these lines, she could not help the flush of colour that passed over her cheeks and she hoped that her aunt Bertram could not notice a change in the dim of the winter afternoon. She hurriedly picked up the netted reticule that she had previously been working. She knew that she should be grateful to Miss Crawford for showing such kind attentions but, in her heart, she could not understand why the most negligible sore throat was being treated as one would a fever, or something worse. She was being made to feel foolish, as though she were the one making such a deal of things. And now Miss Crawford had written to her brother! It was almost too humiliating to bear. She was glad, at least, that aunt Bertram never cared to see her letters.

She had been on an errand to the parsonage when the downpour had begun, Fanny reminded herself. Perhaps Miss Crawford felt some guilt, felt somehow responsible for her being made ill. She had been welcomed into the parsonage, however, and, as before when she had been caught in the rain, she had been treated with such thoughtful care and affection that no remorse was needed. She was grateful for that. There should be the end.

A little later, she sat at the bureau and penned a letter to Miss Crawford, expressing herself as plainly as was polite.

 

It had been, to all appearances, a fine day when Fanny was sent out to collect a receipt that Mrs. Grant had promised Mrs. Norris. It was cold in the wind but, as Fanny took a sheltered route, and the sun was bright in a clear sky, she found the walk pleasant. Until, that is, a bank of black clouds overtook her. Then the rain came down as a flood. Fanny did not have time to find the sparsest shelter before she was wet through. She was close to the parsonage by then and yet, despite her predicament, and with a serious disinclination to make herself a burden on the Grants, she contemplated turning back to Mansfield Park. She knew it was too far and so ran a little further onward as far as the parsonage’s gate. Again, she wondered whether she should not bother the Grants, but almost as soon as she came to a halt she saw a slight figure with hoisted up skirts and an open umbrella emerge from the doorway. It was the Grants’ maid.

“Excuse me, miss,” said the girl, stretching to hold the umbrella above Fanny’s head, “But miss saw you from the window and sent me to bring you in.”

There was little Fanny could do in the face of this. She allowed herself to be led, dripping wet, down the hallway and into the parlour.

 

Miss Crawford was alone. 

That morning, her brother-in-law had notified the household that he had some business to attend to in town and, having an account to be settled with the haberdasher’s there, Mrs. Grant begged to accompany him. Their dear sister was solicited to be the third of the party, however she was too conscious of a deal of neglected correspondence to accept. And so she had passed an hour writing delightful letters to amuse absent friends (and perhaps also their brothers) before finding herself quite alone in the house and with nothing to do. She had attempted to be satisfied with an empty room, peace and solitude, a volume of Cowper. These offered little comfort. She had an admirable propensity for sustaining her own spirits but, she owned, she would far rather be in company than not. She was quite self-pitying by the time the rain started. She had sat a moment in her bedroom’s window and looked out to see a small, bedraggled figure stepping timidly towards the gate.

 

“It is worse than I thought,” Miss Crawford declared, “You are soaked through! Quite honestly, Fanny, you cannot persist in letting yourself be caught out in the rain. Your health will not tolerate it.”

“It seemed such a fine day,” Fanny began to say, but Miss Crawford was already addressing the maid.

“Would you bring us tea, Sally? In this room as soon as possible.”

“Please do not trouble yourself,” said Fanny weakly, knowing that no one was paying her any attention.

Miss Crawford was about to protest in the strongest terms. She turned to Fanny and took in the unsprung curls hanging damply, her dewdropped cheeks, pinked nose and trembling mouth, and she felt, all at once, a deep welling up of affection. Her parted lips closed. She reached, with firm purpose, for the ribbons of Fanny’s bonnet.

“My dear,” she said, “You must be consoled that you are prettier than any other woman I ever saw in such a state.”

Fanny gave a small gasp and blushed from her throat to her forehead. Miss Crawford knew it was not because she was flattered but because she was offended by all attempts at flattery. She regretted having said a word. She resolved not to let her mistake spoil things entirely. She removed the bonnet from Fanny’s head and placed it on the stone hearth. Fanny was looking miserably down at the floor, endeavouring to be as much on the hearth and away from Mrs. Grant’s beautiful Persian carpet as possible.

“Come upstairs and make use of one of my gowns,” said Miss Crawford, simply, “You needn’t worry about the rugs in my room.”

“Oh!” said Fanny, feeling like all these kindnesses were too much.

“At least let me take your coat,” Miss Crawford persisted, not too forcefully, holding back in case Fanny took fright. She wanted to say: “You’re a dear creature!” Or some other such nonsense, anything that could communicate to Fanny that she was honest and affectionate. Yet, she knew they spoke different languages, and she did not know how to express herself in a way that Fanny would understand.

Fanny stood still as Miss Crawford unhooked the buttons of her pelisse.

“Please, I beg of you, do not stay in those wet clothes.”

Fanny nodded at last. “Do not trouble the servants. I can attend to myself.”

“Let me show you to my room,” said Miss Crawford gently, and Fanny even allowed her to take her hand.

 

Fortunately, as Miss Crawford had been in her room writing letters for such a while, there was a good fire burning there. Yet, even so, Fanny could not warm herself. If she had been less cold, or less conscious of the steady drips that were falling from her person to the floor, she might have refused Miss Crawford’s help. Miss Crawford had already set off down the corridor, to find clean blankets from the linen cupboard. When she returned, she bid Fanny sit on the bed.

“Oh! But I would ruin the sheets,” Fanny protested.

“Nonsense,” said Mary, and there was an earnestness as she looked her direct in the eye that Fanny had not seen before, “Could I honestly leave you like this. Look, my dear! You are trembling so!”

Mary caught up Fanny’s hand in her own and held it still. Fanny was so much astonished that she couldn’t find the words to object when Mary relinquished her hand and, slowly, gently, began to unfasten the buttons of her gown. She did not say a word as Mary sat on the bed and pulled her after, so that she was nestled between Mary’s legs, wearing nothing but her stockings and stays. Mary wrapped the blanket tight around her. Fanny did not dare move. She was not sure she wanted to. She could feel Mary pressing herself even closer, her arms around her, her warm stomach, and her breasts against her back. Fanny tentatively touched Mary’s delicate wrist, as though testing that she would not disappear like a shadow or a dream. She wrapped her fingers between Mary’s and, with their hands entwined, pulled her arms tighter around her. It was so long since Fanny had been allowed, or had allowed herself, to show any affection through physical means. She had not expected this to be a gift that Mary Crawford might bestow upon her.

With a thrill of instinct, Mary planted the lightest, featherlike kiss on Fanny’s bare shoulder. It rippled through Fanny like a pulse, shaking her into consciousness. She was so overcome that she looked around the room, desperately, to find something to remark upon. Her eye alighted on the stack of letters on the bureau, yet to be posted.

“I suppose you have been writing to your brother,” she said. She had little thought for the words. She was merely glad she could hear them over the pounding in her head and in her breast.

Her brother! Mary had not given her brother a thought since she had seen Fanny at the parlour door. Such a fool she had been, she cursed herself. Did she not have an ounce of understanding in her brain?

“I suppose my brother has been much on your mind?” she said, with as much cheer as she could muster.

To her astonishment, Fanny went very still in her arms. She worried that she had taken fright at something. She was about to speak when Fanny broke free, stood perfectly upright and walked to where her clothes had been drying by the fire. They were still damp but she said, putting them on with as much haste as possible, “I think these are tolerably dry now, thank you.”

Mary was too bewildered to say a word. Before she could gather herself, it seemed, Fanny was gone from the room.

 

On the way back to Mansfield Park, Fanny tried to make sense of Miss Crawford’s words and actions, but she could not piece them together. She only knew that for one small moment she had allowed herself to like Miss Crawford very much, and it had all been some kind of trick to win her for her brother.

She felt most cruelly used.

 

Miss Crawford watched Fanny from the window. She tried to be happy. Henry had made Fanny much in love with him, far more so than Mary had previously suspected, and yet she had learnt too much of her own feelings that afternoon to be able to meet the thought with the cheerfulness she would like to. Still, she knew she could put a bright face on the matter, and she knew that she was very good at inhabiting a pleasant façade without bothering herself too much with what was underneath.

“She will be a good influence on Henry,” she told herself, bravely, “And at least one of us shall have her.”


End file.
